Top 100 Albums of the 1990s

It's been just over four years since Pitchfork published its first-ever Top 100 feature, Pitchfork's Top 100 Favorite Albums of the 1990s, and looking back at that list a lot has changed: our perceptions of the decade are different now, our personal tastes have expanded, our knowledge of the music has deepened, and excepting myself, Mark Richardson and Brent DiCrescenzo, the staff has turned over twice. It got me to thinking about how the musical landscape, too, continually changes. Revisionism ushers in new classics which had simply been forgotten, or altogether undiscovered, and while most truly essential albums will always be represented on these types of lists, even their relevance can be dictated by current trends.

It occurred to me that, since we have the means, it might be worthwhile to revisit these lists every few years and see how they change. So, over the past few months, the current Pitchfork staff convened to tabulate their revised individual lists, with the ultimate goal of presenting an updated list of 1990s records that have remained essential into the first part of the new decade.

A big surprise for me was just how different this new list is from the old one, and how many more albums we all felt deserved inclusion that, unfortunately, a list of only 100 records could not encompass. Among the casualties were Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, Chavez, The Wrens, Throwing Muses, Spoon, The Roots, Mos Def, Happy Mondays, Archers of Loaf, Amon Tobin, Jay-Z, XTC, Morphine, Royal Trux, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Drive Like Jehu, Orbital, Super Furry Animals, Sunny Day Real Estate, Sebadoh, Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Mobb Deep, Low, Codeine, Flying Saucer Attack, The Sea & Cake, Underworld, Polvo, Shudder to Think, Trail of Dead, Cornershop, Shellac, Gang Starr, Gastr del Sol, John Zorn, Coil, Jawbreaker, Autechre, and countless others. But something we could all agree on were that the albums that did make the list belonged there.

At the very start of the 1990s, The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld managed to make ambient house a perpetual "next big thing" for the rest of the decade. As fearless psychic peregrinators, Dr. Alex Paterson, Thrash, and around 20 other musicians loaded the record up with BBC Shakespeare performances and Apollo 11 recordings, then hit the spaceways, making stops in Detroit clubs, Indian dancehalls, London philharmonics, and Tibetan monasteries. It made for an album that could appeal to everyone from new age receptionists to dubheads to prog-rock pharmacists.

Lest it be forgotten, this is also one of the most supremely hypnotizing drug albums ever. There are more rocket launches here than a New Years' Eve Kiss concert in Los Alamos. Under carbonated cosmo-fountains of astro-juice, the Ultraworld expedition encounters pulsing photon beats and God himself ("And the mountains shall drop sweet wine and the hills shall melt"). It's simultaneously liquid enough to put you to sleep and frighteningly exotic enough to hype your nerves up on the way to the rave. House music was now officially epic. --Alex Linhardt

099: Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx [Loud; 1995]

is "ghetto haiku" still the leading Wu cliché, or..."cinematic?"

but here it's true, like magnetic poetry mixed up by Kool G. Rap

Rae and Ghost, lovers never more opaque, slanged-out wandering the streets

How much more fun can you have with race politics? On KMD's 1991 underground hip-hop classic, the clueless, white-as-starched-napkins Mr. Hood disses Onyx's mom, Sesame Street 's Bert helps us hunt for Little Sambo, and the group's political speechifying rolls masterfully over scratchy old R&B samples. It's not only a crime but also a mystery why this is still out of print-- especially considering MF Doom's current prominence. In KMD, he went by the name Zev Love X, fresh-faced instead of metal-faced, but still dropping rhymes from his mouth like coils of rope; Onyx, who quit after this record, and the late DJ Sub-Roc fill out the trio. What happened after this record is legend: Their grittier and lower-fi follow-up, Black Bastards, was pulled by their label for years, and Sub-Roc was unfortunately killed in an accident. Yet with all that tragic baggage-- and all of its angry rhetoric and heavy themes-- Mr. Hood is still a blast to listen to, an easy-going record rich with neighborhood stories, folklore allusions, some of the funniest skits of all time, and one classic cut after another. --Chris Dahlen

097: Mogwai Young Team [Jetset; 1997]

Mogwai weren't the first rock band to stack up thick, hypnotic layers of ambient drone, thread in some raw cellos and violins, maximize the rushing crescendo, and then proudly brand the result "post-rock." But they are, inarguably, some of the most successful noodlers their field has seen. Dealing in pedals, ploys and big, galactic drama, Mogwai consistently capture the experience of loping up every last hill in Scotland, then tumbling back down with a gorgeous, triumphant blast of sound. While Mogwai's output may be perpetually swelling, it's hardly facile: Young Team, the band's stunning 1997 debut, pulled together unexpected bits of found sound, carefully tinkered piano, and plenty of now-trademark crashing guitars, each lulling wave of sound eventually punctuated by an explosion of feedback or jarring soft-loud shift. Successfully transcending the tedium of instrumental drone rock, Young Team remains a thrilling listen, dynamic, arch and occasionally terrifying: Check the unforeseeable guitar eruption three minutes into "Like Herod". You will fall out of your chair. --Amanda Petrusich

096: Herbert Around the House [!K7; 1998]

The title of Mathew Herbert's first proper full-length under his own name is a pun, of course-- one that states his M.O. quite nicely. Around the House is playful and open-ended, veering from straight pop to exercises in sound manipulation, but its comforting 4/4 post-disco beat puts it all in the vicinity of house music. The title also alludes to the common objects that served as sound sources throughout the record, something that for the listener is incidental.

Herbert has always thrown a light on his composition method, going so far as to spell it out formally and draft a written manifesto for music creation, but the "how" of Herbert's music is easy to ignore as you immerse yourself in his sound. Around the House, save a long soundscape at its end, is airy, spacious and warm, the aural equivalent of late fall afternoon sun. The record has no duds, but the highlight is definitely "So Now", which, elevated by collaborator Dani Siciliano's vocals, is one of the greatest pop songs in Herbert's oeuvre. Given the limitless sonic possibilities of the computer, Matthew Herbert is a genius with limitation. --Mark Richardson

095: Massive Attack Mezzanine [Virgin; 1998]

It's hard to improve on Brent DiCrescenzo's original review of this album, which pointed out that Mezzanine absorbs light. Even in the blacklit genre of trip-hop, nothing hit the low register like the pulses of the brooding "Angel" or the choked-out, smoked-out vocals on "Risingson". But what saves this from being a mere opium drip soundtrack are the flashes of pop: the subtle hooks, the dependable songwriting, and-- most of all-- the spare use of Elizabeth Fraser's high vocal wisps. On "Teardrop" and especially "Group Four", the contrast between that fleeting beacon and the void below evoke far more drama than their writing ever could-- like some classic mythological painting where the gates of heaven are just barely in sight of whatever's damned at the bottom. --Chris Dahlen

094: Frank Black Teenager of the Year [4AD; 1994]

Though originally panned by critics and fans for its bug-eyed sense of humor and perceived lack of focus, Frank Black's Teenager of the Year has since come to be regarded as the defining statement of his solo career. Spanning 22 sprawling tracks and more than 60 minutes, it's not an album that quickly reveals itself, but beneath its initially rabid veneer lie moments brilliant enough to rival any of the Pixies' 1990s work, and Black's greatest lyrical achievements. Witness "Speedy Marie", whose profoundly romantic lines, like many on the album, exhibit a near-poetic depth: "Wise is the tongue, wet of perfect thought/ And softest neck where always do I/ Lay my clumsy thoughts." "White Noise Maker" laments the modern age with a vintage amplifier as its central symbol: "That billboard prose shining on me/ And it shines because/ It's been so long since my Telstar/ I hope it crashes in the sea." "Headache" details its namesake with the evocative turn, "My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound."

These songs serve not only as examples of Black's lyrical ingenuity, but also his mastery of the three-minute pop song. This album is, in fact, filled with evidence of Black's songwriting proficiency: From the bouncy piano pop of "The Vanishing Spies", to the wistful rocker "Calistan", to "Freedom Rock", "I Could Stay Here Forever" and "Space Is Gonna Do Me Good", Teenager of the Year is the kind of cerebral pop masterpiece that could only be deemed a disappointment in the wake of such an indomitable precedent as the Pixies. --Ryan Schreiber

093: Bob Dylan Time Out of Mind [Columbia; 1997]

Bob Dylan will always be understood as a stubbornly prolific songwriter, his magnificent, fuck-off scowl belying a throbbing penchant for unadulterated self-expression. In the post- Blood on the Tracks 1970s, Dylan served up loads of unilaterally unwelcome records about his newfound (and adamant) embrace of born-again Christianity; when necessary, he shot the appropriate sneer at open-mouthed detractors, refusing to play any other material at his live shows. In the 1980s, he spit out a few insufferable quasi-dance experiments (see 1985's Empire Burlesque ), an infamously wretched Grateful Dead pile-up (1989's Dylan & The Dead ), and embarked on an, um, ambitious never-ending world tour. In the early 1990s, we glimpsed a brief return to traditional acoustic folk, a greatest hits record, and then, finally, in 1997, the stunning Time Out of Mind.

Dylan's groundbreaking work in the 1960s had already provided him with a valid, non-expiring pass for late-millennium stumbling; Time Out of Mind wasn't especially necessary to preserve his legacy, a fact that makes the record feel even more quintessentially Dylan-esque. Unexpected, unprecedented and wholly remarkable, Time Out of Mind contained Dylan's strongest songwriting since in two decades, a gritty, dark and hauntingly spare lamentation of mortality and love. Opener "Lovesick" stands as one of the most heartbreakingly vitriolic love songs ever recorded, while "Standing in the Doorway"-- with its delicate electric guitar and plaintive vocals-- sees Dylan at his most vulnerable. Indeed: Bob came back, again. --Amanda Petrusich

092: Scott Walker Tilt [Drag City; 1995]

Scott Walker's retreat from the public eye in the 1980s only assisted his ascent into the realm of the avant-garde. His 1984 Climate of the Hunter LP hinted at a newfound interest in eclectic ambience but was nothing compared to the creative supernova of 1995's Tilt. Here, Walker's music wasn't completely removed from his classic 1960s existential baroque-pop, but rather allowed to evolve naturally into a bizarre and engaging dark suite of art-songs. "Farmer in the City"-- a tribute to Italian art-house director Paolo Pasolini-- connects Walker's affinities for cinematic orchestral arrangements and weighty, minor key balladry. "The Cockfighter", like many of Tilt 's tracks, uses natural ambience and subtle electronic touches to establish a mood, and then suddenly erupts into abrasive, aggressive avant-rock, as Walker operatically wails, "It's a beautiful night!"

In fact, Tilt resembles nothing so much as an extended, post-modern aria; its structure defying the simple arrangement of verses and choruses, it delivers a faithful presentation of stream-of-consciousness self-discovery and even dementia. The most ambitious moments ("Patriot [A Single]", "Bouncer See Bouncer") elude description entirely, but are stunning examples of what can happen when an artist is allowed to explore his muse on his own terms. The chilling "Rosary", featuring only a trembling Walker accompanying himself on guitar, perhaps betrays the intense isolation at the heart of Tilt, but it also exposes his raw-nerve expression as both a beacon of originality and something capable of truly moving emotional resonance. --Dominique Leone

091: Tortoise TNT [Thrill Jockey; 1998]

Consider this post-rock's problem child. TNT marked a confluence of avant-garde jazz, indie rock and minimalist lite-techno that circuitously landed itself in territory carefully avoided by traditional rock albums: easy listening. Never too abrasive, yet consistently challenging, TNT was like a hypnotic snowglobe that refused to settle without ever having required shaking. Tortoise showcased their musicians' talents with an improviser's bent, leaving behind the sometimes production-centric electronic dub leanings of Millions Now Living Will Never Die in favor of a more inspired, organic feel. You can feel the groove in the album's opening minutes: fragmented loose drum forms slowly take shape behind scattered angular guitar chords, only to fall perfectly in line for a subdued, but determined, steady full-circuit instrumental jam. From there the doors are thrown wide open until the mesmerizing tones of "Everglade" float you home. Tortoise let you inside for this one, so just keep it down and don't touch anything. --William Morris